Standard is not a healthy format. Aaron Forsythe himself has stated that this is “the worst we’ve screwed up since Mirrodin.” The dominance of the Caw-Blade deck puts me in mind of this clip from the film Gladiator in which Russell Crowe efficiently slaughters a group of exotically armed and armored foes, then demands of the crowd, “Are you not entertained? Is this not why you are here?” Evidently we are not entertained, if the dwindling Standard event attendance figures reported here and elsewhere are anything to go by. Before this article hits the tubes, the mothership will have announced the fate of Standard for the next quarter of the year, but as I am writing, I can still only speculate. In an effort to retain as much up-to-the-minute relevance as possible, I am going to cover all likely bases in this discussion of the June 20 Banned and Restricted announcement—read on, marvel at my predictive abilities, and wonder at what might have been.

Stoneforge Mystic Banned!

Wizards had to act. Caw-Blade’s fingers had been tightening around the windpipe of Standard for months now, slowly choking off every other deck choice as a reasonable option. While the deck played all the best cards in the format, there was really no question as to who was the most broken of all: Stoneforge Mystic.

Stoneforge Mystic has been gaining value ever since she was printed, way back in Worldwake. While she has been long overshadowed as that set’s flagship broken rare by Jace, with the arrival of Scars of Mirrodin block and its plentiful and powerful equipment, Mystic can now tutor for a lifelinking Serra Angel, Mana Flare/Disrupting Scepter, Cunning Sparkmage, Lhurgoyf, or Paladin En-Vec, among others, and force them down through countermagic at a hefty discount. Recently, she’s been strutting her stuff in Legacy and putting old standby 2-drops Bob and Goyf on the sidelines, which is a pretty strong indicator that she’s a bit too powerful for Standard.

While some might argue that it’s the equipment that makes her broken, it is obvious that without Mystic, many of these equipments would be barely playable—while Batterskull is still a resilient threat, coming down on turn five is not nearly as rough on aggressive strategies as on turn three, midcombat. The swords have seen hardly any play in Block, where they don’t have Mystic to find them. The most recent similar situation was the rise of Survival of the Fittest and Vengevine in Legacy—decks playing these in combination broke the format, to the point that even dedicated anti-Survival strategies were pushed out of the top placings. While Vengevine was the newer card to the combination, Wizards saw that the real issue was Survival of the Fittest—leaving Survival in the format would make it a ticking time bomb, just waiting for the next Vengevine-like recursive creature. Banning Survival has seen Vengevine fade completely out of the Legacy metagame, and frees Wizards to print recursive creatures without having to worry about Survival shenanigans.

Just like in that situation, it was the tutor/engine card, Stoneforge Mystic, that was the problem, and she had to go for the health of the format. Fortunately for her and her fans, she has Modern, Extended, Overextended, and Legacy to dominate, even if her reign over Standard has been cut short.

Jace, the Mind Sculptor Banned!

Wizards had to act. Caw-Blade’s fingers had been tightening around the windpipe of Standard for months now, slowly choking off every other deck choice as a reasonable option. While the deck played all the best cards in the format, there was really no question as to who was better than all: Jace, the Mind Sculptor.

The initial hype over Jace took a little while to build, but by the time he hit Standard, he was already the most expensive card in the format. It took Bloodbraid Elf and Blightning to keep the blue man down, but with the rotation of Shards block, the Mind Sculptor was free to force every non-hasty, non-187 creature out of the format. Every Blue deck from Worlds to Paris was focused around forcing down a Jace and protecting him, and every time a challenger has arisen to try and prize him from the throne, he has simply absorbed them—witness the latest innovation in Standard, TwinBlade.

While some might argue that Jace is really not that great anymore and Stoneforge is the real problem, witness the Skullclamp ban decision.

Let’s talk about Standard first. Skullclamp was banned in Standard, frankly, because it was everywhere. Every competitive deck either had four in the main deck, had four in the sideboard, or was built to try and defend against it. And there were a lot more successful decks in the first two categories than in the third. Such representation is completely unhealthy for the format.

The Ban Jace argument really picked up steam after the infamous GP: Denver Top 8, which featured the maximum number of Jaces possible in eight tournament-legal decks. The blue man has hardly missed a beat since then—while R/U/G has fallen out of favor, he can be spied in the glamorous new U/R Twin decks as well as format behemoth Caw-Blade and its several variants. Jace has recently also stamped his authority on Legacy; with the new Mental Misstep and the resurgence of Standstill making him much easier to protect, he provides a powerful draw engine, suppresses your opponent’s counterattack and provides a strong win condition. In Legacy. This is a pretty strong indicator that he’s a bit too powerful for Standard.

With a price occasionally topping $100, Jace has redefined the secondary market in a way no card since Tarmogoyf has managed. Jace fans protest that banning him would upset those who had shelled out $400 for their playsets and potentially lose more Standard players than it would win back, but this is a nonsense argument. Jace is one of the most powerful cards the game has ever seen and is already an Eternal staple—whatever format shakes out between Legacy and Standard will surely also feel the weight of Jace, and prop up his price. His rotation is only a few months distant anyway, so savvy Standard players would be wise to shift their Jaces before long if they are worried about losing value.

Fans insisted that Jace really wasn’t that bad, that Stoneforge Mystic was the true broken element of Caw-Blade, and they were really thinking about cutting Jace anyway. None of them were apparently game enough to do so, though, so R&D had to force them to. Boros is a Stoneforge deck without Jace; it is hardly putting up impressive numbers. Sorry, Jace fans, but his time was up. Perhaps you’d like to try this format called Legacy, where all the other not-quite-broken cards get to hang out?

Batterskull Banned!

Wizards had to act. Caw-Blade’s fingers had been tightening around the windpipe of Standard for months now, slowly choking off every other deck choice as a reasonable option. While the deck played all the best cards in the format, there was really no question as to who was the most offensive of all: Batterskull.

The best argument against banning Jace in the wake of Denver was the imminent release of New Phyrexia. Hex Parasite had already been spoiled, and Despise was close behind—finally some answers to bring the planeswalking menace to heel, and Caw-Blade back down to Earth!

Unfortunately, when the two Guillames made their ill-considered decisions about the godbook and the full spoiler went public, it was all good news for Caw-Blade. As if fetching Swords and whacking them on Hawks wasn’t strong enough, now the white mages could happily skip that second step by grabbing Batterskull instead, which came with a pre-equipped expendable body. Its combination of abilities, which have been discussed previously in this column, renders aggressive strategies near-useless and turns the Caw mirror into an endurance-testing slog. The already oppressive Caw-Blade strategy was suddenly launched into the stratosphere, to the point that it has variously been called “beautiful,” “the only deck worth playing,” and even “the greatest Standard deck of all time” by respected pundits.

Now that Batterskull has been banned, we can get back to pre-NPH levels of Caw dominance. How Wizards couldn’t see what was going to happen is beyond me, but at least they corrected their mistake swiftly. Batterskull fans protest that without Stoneforge Mystic, the living weapon is a mediocre card that might see fringe play at best. With so many fans, though, Caw-Blade isn’t something R&D wants to just obliterate with heavy-handed banning. Banning Batterskull is a tweak, the fine touch of an artist rather than the strike of a sledgehammer. Come October, the ’Skull can return without Stoneforge Mystic around. These two just shouldn’t be together in such a small format.

Nothing Banned!

Wizards had to act. Caw-Blade’s fingers had been tightening around the windpipe of Standard for months now, slowly choking off every other deck choice as a reasonable option. While the deck played all the best cards in the format, there was really no question as to what was the most irritating of all: cry-baby players.

By banning nothing, Wizards would deliver a firm statement to the lazy Standard player base. In the words of Yo! MTG Taps!: “Stop bitching; start brewing.” Caw-Blade is eminently beatable—its creatures are fragile and vulnerable to removal, while the deck is growing so inbred to battle the mirror match that there are openings for decks like mono-Red or Vampires to take down tournaments, as seen in the most recent Open. Strategy writers all over the Internet are throwing out deck list after deck list; if you don’t want to play Caw-Blade, it’s just a matter of sleeving up, testing and tuning, and putting in the hard work—you can’t just Bituminous Blast and cross your fingers anymore.

There always has to be a best deck, and many would argue that it is better to have a format dominated by a skill-testing deck than by an apparently random one like Jund. R&D will never be able to make all the players happy with a given format. While we see Edgar Flores taking down Top 8 after Top 8 with Caw-Blade, does that really make the format worse than the one in which an eight-year-old child Day-2’ed a Grand Prix playing Jund?

M12 and then Innistrad are out soon, and Caw-Blade will be a memory by Christmas no matter what, so let’s just enjoy this skill-testing format while we can.

All the above is only speculation at the time of writing; however, whatever is announced tomorrow, I feel pretty sure I’ve got it covered. Wizards has a hell of a decision to make, and I for one am glad I won’t be held responsible as we progress toward October. If I had to make a bet, I would say Stoneforge only will be banned, because she is the heart of the Caw-Blade deck that is dominating the format. Nailing Stoneforge sends a big signal to anyone who abandoned the format because of Caw-Blade that it’s safe to return. I would like to see Jace only banned, because he has the most oppressive effect on the format as far as rendering other cards unplayable. Batterskull is merely a symptom of Stoneforge’s Disease, and doing nothing is a seriously dangerous move—either the format improves on its own, or it goes further downhill and R&D faces the even more difficult choice of riding it out or emergency-banning something. Let me know in the comments if you think R&D has made the right or wrong decision, or hit me up on Twitter for a chat.